Saturday, August 16, 2014

More Proof That Our Customers Have the Best Ideas . . .

I was home only two weekends between the last weekend in June and this one – one of them was the Fourth of July Weekend and the other was the weekend that my nephew got married. So all of my weekdays have been filled with either preparations for the coming weekend’s show or family gatherings.

So this week has been a blurrrrrrr . . . as I tried to catch up with all of the e-mails and new items and such that I have missed. All the while, Gary has been wandering through my little corner of the mail center asking the same question – “Has the e-mail gone out yet?” He is being your advocate – he knows that many of you have been waiting for the new toys and trinkets and goodies that have been released in the past few weeks – and that you’re also waiting for us to get them on our site so you can get the special pricing for advance orders. He also knows that I don’t like to do anything until I’m sure that it’s complete and just as close to perfect as I can make it.

So he and I walk both sides of that fine line between perfection and speed . . .

I finally had it all ready on Thursday afternoon, so I wrote the e-mail and hit the “send” button. Because there is a “speed limit” on the amount of e-mails our system will allow to be sent per hour, it takes almost 36 hours for all of them to go out (which is why some of you didn’t see that e-mail until you woke up this morning).

And then I opened my inbox this morning, where I discovered the following note from Kathy English in Texas . . .

Hi! I love your blog and your website!! I just noticed that the last of the Tim Holtz mini ink pads are coming soon. Wouldn't you love to package an entire set of all 12 of these sets and sell it for a really good price? Such a good idea--'cause I really want them all! Thanks for all your years of supplying us with things we need. Kathy

Now I will admit that stroking my ego a bit is always a good way to start a request! But beyond that, I will also admit this – “That’s a great idea – how did I miss it?” I have always said that the best ideas come from our customers, and over the years I have had enough requests for complete sets that you would think it would have sunk in at some point. But until it does, I am grateful to Kathy and others like you who keep me on my toes.

That said . . .

This banner is now on our homepage, and if you click on it (or on this graphic), Kathy’s wish was my command . . .

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Welcome!

This has been a work in progress for a long time. I suspected for a long time that we needed to start a blog where we could post information, pictures and such. But it took Cheryl Darrow from Ten Seconds Studio to finally convince me to take the plunge.

When I started building our website more than 18 years ago, I barely knew how to turn on a computer. I learned a lot and got a lot of good advice along the way, we rebuilt it five years ago, and now I can update it in my sleep. This blog is much the same -- at the outset I had only a vague idea how this page would best serve our customers. It has become a place to post pictures from conventions, tutorials, a quick sale notice, some of my stream of consciousness thinking, and pictures of my dog from time to time. I have also discovered a group of foodies who enjoy my recipes and a group of prayer warriors who helped carry my mom through chemotherapy.

You folks are great -- most of the best ideas we've ever had weren't ours at all. They came from our customers.

Someday I'll tell the story of how we entered the world of rubber stamp conventions, mail order, wacky costumes, and more. Again, it wasn't our idea -- two of our customers get all the credit.